How can there be a conspiracy about “the real report” when no one has read the report outside of Mueller, Barr, Rosenstein, and a few others?
Personally I’m astonished that journalists and pundits are being played and just gobbling this stunt hook line and sinker. The Washington Post big blaring headline right now asserts that “Democrats challenge Mueller’s findings”. No, Democrats challenge Barr’s PR release giving his spin on the findings. I won’t repeat all the commentary that’s pointed out how the only direct quote from the report is one that says that Trump might indeed have committed crimes. Keeping in mind that Barr wants to spin this as positively as he can for Trump, think for a moment about how that’s the best actual quote he could find to do so.
So sure, the report might say exactly what Barr claims. On the other hand, as you agree, it might not. We have no idea. That’s what astonishes me, the entire mainstream journalistic world – with the one exception of the NYT lead editorial by the way, so rare kudos to them, check it out – has just taken Barr’s several page spin as “the report” Astonishing. Not surprising but still astonishing.
We need all the Democratic candidates to call Trump’s BS out and they have already started to - especially those in the Senate who are in a position to do something about it.
Absolutely possible. I’d say it’s heartbreaking, but there’s only so much heartbreak we can withstand in one week, so it has to be something different. I don’t have words, though, for what it is.
My Trump Decoder says he doesn’t have a clue what’s in the report and honestly thinks it exonerates him due to Barr’s coverup. As soon as someone on TV tells him how damaging the report really is, he’ll freak out and insist that it’s treason to even speak of it. Basically, a repeat of how he handled the Mattis resignation letter, but this time it’s personal.
…What? Who is doing this? Can you provide some examples?
Obviously, the report which we have not yet seen is Mueller’s actual report. The one that Barr has seen, and presumably read, and described (I’m assuming) in the most Trump-positive but technically accurate manner, is the report. The one which we understand does not describe additional provable criminal conduct, but which likely does contain some politically damaging information. There is not going to be some second, still-secret, super-damning report that Mueller will spring upon us months down the line.
Just staying with the Washington Post, here’s another one, from a subhead:
“Special counsel finds no conspiracy, but punts on obstruction”
This is absurd. We don’t know that Mueller found “no conspiracy”. We know that William Barr, who was hired specifically to put this kind of spin on things, claims that the findings say this. The findings might say that there seemed to be plenty of conspiracy but not enough to charge as a crime for specific reasons. They might be “punting” on conspiracy also – we just don’t know, is the point, the letter is almost entirely Barr’s gloss on things, and people are just taking it as “the report” e.g. “the report says”.
Re the rest of what you write about a “second still-secret report” – honestly I have no idea what you’re talking about, it’s certainly not about anything I wrote.
WhichHunT!! NoW invesTigate the real collusioners, demonraTs and Hitlary, Uranium OnE, benghazi storCk aNd hiS forbIDden livOr Lisa PAge, and swaLWell treason for liBel oF President. DeeP sTate cannoOt do coo.
If Mueller had found ironclad evidence that Trump personally directed that his campaign coordinate criminally with the Russians, frankly that wouldn’t make me sleep more easily tonight. I want all of the crimes which were committed to be discovered and prosecuted, but that doesn’t mean I wish that there were extra crimes committed.
That is, “Trump is garbage human, terrible president, major criminal” is not more comforting than “Trump is garbage human, terrible president, possibly not criminal”.
One of the rare times a mainstream media pundit seems to be cautioning the same thing I am, just slow down folks about all these conclusions about what “the report” said. Every single word being written at this point is about Barr’s summary, with the exception of a few scattered direct quotes from the report that he included. If you completely trust someone like William Barr to be impartially giving you a summary of the report then I’ve got a luxury building in Manhattan I’d like to sell you.
He would say it that way too, thinking that the only real copy is the hard copy. I doubt if he knows what a PDF is and how fast it can be disseminated.
Of course, but we both know neither impeachment nor a conclusion that Trump is deeply unfit requires that he have committed crimes. To willingly, enthusiastically, gleefully benefit from an illegal effort by a hostile foreign nation to affect the outcome of the election in your favor if that’s all he did may not be in the code as a crime but it’s morally repulsive and entirely unacceptable. The reason it’s not in the code is it was formerly unthinkable. And we know he did that. I’m willing to bet the actual report lays that out in greater detail than we’ve seen. It just doesn’t prove it according to prosecutorial standards. But politically it’s a reasonable person standard, more or less.
Of course, enthusiastically cosigned – which is why at least Congress, and really also the American public, needs to see the entire report approximately right now. Political problems require political solutions, impeachment hearings today and voting tomorrow.
